Update my dinner status, I'm making this tonight.
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Servings: 4 Servings
Total Time (median): 3 : 00 Active Time: 0 : 30
US/Metric: [convert to metric]
Ingredients
- 1 • 1.5kg pork belly
- 1 sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 • 2 red onions halved
- 1 • 2 carrots peeled and halved lengthways
- 1 • 2 sticks of celery chopped in half
- 1 • 1 bulb of garlic skin on, broken into cloves
- 1 • a small bunch of fresh thyme leaves picked
- 1 • 600ml water or stock
Preparation
The lovely thick layer of fat on this particular cut keeps the meat
really moist as it roasts, and also gives you an incredible even layer
of delicious crackling. Belly is a very underrated cut in the UK, but it
is becoming a favourite on gastropub menus, and rightly so. If you’re
worried about scoring the crackling yourself, ask your butcher to do it
for you, that’s what he’s there for.
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 2.5 hours
Preheat your oven to full whack, it needs to be at least 220°C/425°F/gas 7.
Place your pork on a clean work surface, skin-side upwards. Get yourself a small
sharp knife
and make scores about a centimetre apart through the skin into the fat, but not so
deep that
you cut into the meat. Rub salt right into all the scores you’ve just made, pulling the
skin apart a little if you have to. Brush any excess salt off the surface of the skin and
turn it over. Season the underside of the meat with a little more salt and a little black
pepper. Place your pork, skin side-up, in a roasting tray big enough to hold the pork
and the vegetables, and place in the hot oven.
Roast for about half an hour until the skin of the pork has started to puff up and you
can see
it turning into crackling. Turn the heat down to 180°C/350°F/gas 4 and roast for
another hour.
Take out of the oven and baste with the fat in the bottom of the tray. Carefully lift
the pork up and transfer to a chopping board. Add all the veg, garlic and thyme to
the tray and stir them into the fat. Place the pork on top of everything and pop the
tray back in the oven. Roast for another hour. By this time the meat should be
meltingly soft and tender. Carefully move the meat to a serving dish, cover with tin
foil and leave to rest while
you make your gravy.
Spoon away any fat in the tray, then add the water or stock and place the tray on
the hob.
Bring to the boil and simmer for a few minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden
spoon to
scrape up all those lovely sticky tasty bits on the bottom of the tray. When you’ve
got a nice, dark gravy, pour it through a sieve into a bowl or gravy boat, using your
spoon to really push all the goodness of the veg through the sieve. Add a little more
salt and pepper if it needs it. Serve the pork with the crackling, gravy, some creamy
mashed potato, nice fresh greens and a dollop of English mustard.
